Cryptocurrency will have to face political pressure – yes, even more than it’s facing now – and aggressive actions from banks and financial authorities across the world in a near future. That is, at least, what the leading economist and professor of entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management Simon Johnson bets it will happen.

Johnson recently spoke at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference in Massachusetts, where he said that “there is going to be a big political backlash. And the question is whether the people behind those currencies are ready for that and have their own political strategy”, quoted by the site MIT Technology Review.

The expert predicts that Bitcoin’s growing success will continue to draw the attention of governments and regulators to a point where they will likely try to crush the cryptocurrency.

Any bankers watching this should be very afraid. (…) People care a lot about how monies are used. They care about the various behaviors associated with monies.

Simon Johnson thinks that Bitcoiners could deviate the opponents’ focus by persuading politicians and legislators that Bitcoin represents an opportunity for international innovation: “they shouldn’t sit back and wait for other people to define them in terms of Silk Road or anything else. They should be proactive and explain why this would be a great industry for the US to develop, and why they should have appropriate regulation around that”.